Small children are flying through the air. They yelp, strike boards with their feet and fall back down to earth in a small strip mall beside a Kragen Auto Parts.

This is a good thing. If you've noticed that the world is crumbling a bit — if the bad seems to be getting worse too quickly for the good — your medicine can be found at Jordan Schreiber's tae kwon do studio. There, amid the quiet, leafy streets of Martinez, something small but lovely is happening.

I first heard of Schreiber from his wife, a writer I know, and could only assume he'd taken one too many side kicks to the noggin. A Harvard grad with a degree in political science, he went on to become a Truman Scholar, and to get his Ph.D. at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. From there he was admitted to the Yale Law School — which he eschewed, not being keen on New Haven, for Harvard Law School. From there, he headed west and took a prestigious public defender position in Contra Costa County.

Forget parents — it was a career that would make your neighbors proud. Last year, Schreiber gave it all up for bare feet and a do jahng full of sweaty mats.

If you're thinking this is one of those stories where the ambitious go-getter tosses everything for a relaxing, lower-stakes gig, think again. To watch him run the class is to witness a teacher, a guidance counselor, a pastor, a coach and a high-kicking uncle all in one. Kids call him "sir," volunteer scholastic achievements, confess sins, learn a little Korean. And yes, he's still a lawyer: His students' parents come to him for legal advice now and then, and negotiating that lease for the studio was a breeze.

There are guys who look like they might snap your spine. Schreiber is not one of them. Soft-spoken, mild-mannered and conspicuously disinclined toward punching other people, he gives little hint of the sixth-degree black belt lurking within. But, of course, that's the thing about sixth-degree black belts. The point isn't the spine snapping. The point is the underlying values and principles that Schreiber has been learning since 1982 when, as a 9-year-old in a small New Mexico town, he decided to take tae kwon do lessons from a neighbor who happened to be a grand master.

Growing up in a rural area with 10 mixed-race, adoptive siblings, Schreiber developed an interest in justice that dovetailed with his martial arts lessons.

"My parents filed a letter with the school saying, essentially, I had permission to physically defend my siblings if they were called 'nigger,'" he says.

"I did end up punching one kid," he adds with no evident pride. "But for the most part, what I learned was how to defuse situations. (Because of the tae kwon do) I wasn't scared, and I also had nothing to prove."

Having discovered a pursuit that instilled those qualities, Schreiber got to thinking. What began as interest in simply teaching other kids grew, over the years, to something further reaching: an interest in getting those classes to the kids who needed them most. As he opened clubs in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Oxford, he also began imagining an umbrella organization that would provide scholarships to would-be students in need.

He launched Team PRIDE (Perseverance, Respect, Integrity, Discipline and Excellence) in 2003, and proceeded to develop the nationwide program on the side, even during his public defender days. It was Schreiber's last six months in that position that gave him the final nudge toward full-time Team PRIDE work. Handling a great number of dependency cases at this point meant he was working mostly with young people. He realized that getting them into tae kwon do was the wisest thing he could do with his time.

Back to the children flying through the air. It's a typical Tuesday afternoon for Schreiber, which is to say 15 or so kids have removed their shoes, produced credible bows and stepped onto the mats. Instantly, and rather jarringly, they are transported to a place of mutual respect. Some are on scholarship, some are not. Yellow belts mingle with black belts. The group is racially diverse and, perhaps more impressive for children, the 6-to-12 age range seems to present no problems. Nobody squabbles, nor are there signs of subtler power struggles. They just sort of get along.

Schreiber's studio has the feel of another era — the kind where children aren't handled quite so delicately and adults don't mind telling them exactly what to do. But Schreiber's firmness is matched by patience, a tender wryness ("I'm going to take that mirror down if you don't stop staring into it") and, most of all, a genuine respect for his students. It seems contagious. When, at the beginning of class, everyone recites the student pledge ("courtesy and respect for everyone I meet" was my favorite part), they actually seem to mean it.

"The kicking and punching are a Trojan horse," Schreiber explains. "It gets them in the door, but unwittingly they start to develop those more important character traits, too."

As for the kicking and punching, and the hook kicks, and crescent kicks, and roundhouse kicks, and side kicks: When it comes to delivering instruction, Schreiber has that rare, enviable talent of not hesitating before children. Schreiber is everywhere, responding constantly, talking constantly. Turns out in real life, the occasional and cryptic "wax on, wax off" won't engage a room full of fidgety kids. The children, in turn, appear grateful for his facility with them. Somehow even the smallest have memorized complex moves and the principles behind them.

"Who remembers what life skill we're talking about today?" he asks at one point.

"Goals!" someone chirps.

"What's that?"

"Something you set for yourself that you want to accomplish?"

"Excellent." He goes on to ask for specific goals, and is met with a flurry: Do better in math this week, do better with reading, practice soccer more.

Class ends with a touching recognition of the kids' various achievements that week. One child is praised for doing well on a math test, another for learning all 50 states, another for maintaining a relationship with a pen pal in India. The class pounds the floor in appreciation of every star.

OK, now extrapolate. Watching children so engaged, challenged and respected, one can't help but wish similar opportunities on kids all over. One of the mothers at Tuesday's class described a remarkable surge of confidence in her son, who has been studying with Schreiber for three years. Team PRIDE takes aim at those kids from Schreiber's former dependency cases, and from other dicey situations throughout the country, and helps them get similar boosts. A simple form determines whether they're eligible for PRIDE — receiving SSI, ADC, Medicaid and reduced or free school lunches will suffice — and they're on their way.

Before one of his classes, I ask whether that those life lessons couldn't be taught with baseball or, say, checkers?

"Sure," he says. "But martial arts works particularly well partly because of the structure — the bowing, the 'yes sir' — and partly because everything's so alien here. They're suddenly barefoot, responding to Korean commands. I think a switch flips in their minds, and they're prepared to do something different."

Watching Schreiber devote himself to other people's tae kwon do, it's easy to forget about his own. This June he heads to Arkansas for the American Taekwondo Association World Championships, in which he and a handful of others from around the world advance to the status of master. Getting here has taken decades of practice, not to mention a rigorous program of physical and intellectual training, including readings and even writing assignments — all of which can be glimpsed at his Web site.

Ever humble, he was unpretentious on the subject of becoming a master.

"Some people say it's the pinnacle of the martial arts experience," Schreiber told me recently over burritos. He shrugged dismissively and said he just saw it as another milestone in a lifelong path. We discussed it a little but then came back to the subject that seemed to grab him more — his students.

"I always tell them that most of us will never be in a fight, and yet we're all here several days a week — there must be something else we're getting from this," he says with a smile.

Chris Colin has worked as a writer-editor at Salon, and before that a busboy, a bread deliverer and a bike messenger, among other things. He's the author of "What Really Happened to the Class of '93," about the lives of his former high school classmates, and co-author of "The Blue Pages," a directory of companies rated by their politics and social practices. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Mother Jones, the New York Observer, McSweeney's Quarterly and several anthologies. He lives in San Francisco.